As the age of “climate hysteria” enters a new era of energy realism, the UN COP28 climate summit is expected to shift in tone from previous years, according to a panel of climate and energy experts in a preview of what to expect from this year’s gathering in Dubai.
Organized by climate policy watchdog Net Zero Watch, the COP28 preview featured energy economics consultant, Dr. Tilak Doshi; Dr. Benny Peiser, director of Global Warming Policy Foundation, and Patricia Adams, economist and executive director of Probe International.
COP28 is likely to resemble more a trade conference this year than a climate summit, as countries around the world become increasingly focused on energy security, says Adams. She highlights the paradoxical role China plays in the global net-zero project and targets to cut carbon emissions.
China is weaponizing climate alarm to dominate the world stage, says Adams. Encouraging Western countries to pursue green energy transition timelines benefits China’s manufacturing sector enormously as the world’s #1 producer of green technology, she says. Domestically, however, China is reliant on fossil fuels as its primary source of power supply and is ramping up production of coal, as well as pursuing energy deals with oil-and-gas producers including the host of COP28, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The latter denies this.
China knows its promises to cut and curb are worth more to the West than action, in any case. As the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, without China at the climate talk table, Western countries can’t convince their own populations they are making good on promises to reduce emissions and “save the planet,” says Adams. Transitioning to green energy also leaves the West vulnerable to dependence on unreliable and costly renewable energy sources. In that scenario, Western countries hobbled with debt and compromised energy systems will fall behind as China moves ahead in its mission to replace the U.S. as the dominant global power, she warns.
Other highlights of the preview include an expected pushback from developing countries on the adoption of green energy at the expense of growth. Development aid being renamed as “climate finance” is another emerging issue, says Dr. Doshi.
Climate financing from the development aid budgets of donor nations eclipses other development goals (health, education, women’s rights, and poverty alleviation). A recent report from the NGO Care International revealed 93% of climate financing came from development aid, which violated “multiple pledges … potentially threatening global progress on the UN 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as putting the world at risk of a climate catastrophe.”
Dr. Peiser anticipated political upheavals — notably the election victories of Javier Milei (Argentina) and Geert Wilders (Holland) — would change the atmosphere at this year’s summit as countries increasingly refocused their priorities on issues of security.
“Even [US President] Biden is approving new oil and gas pipelines … and Germany is facing almost an existential crisis over its climate policy,” he said. “The wheels are falling off the [climate policy] bus.”